Cardano is a decentralized blockchain whose native coin ADA not only skyrocketed this year with over 20x gains, but many analysts predict the coin to rise even more. One of the main reasons behind this development is likely Cardano’s underlying technology.
The Cardano blockchain does not only offer great fundamental values, for example a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, they also provide the possibility of staking ADA for easy passive income and one of the newest developments: The support for NFTs.
While the NFT space was just recently introduced to Cardano and many projects and marketplaces are still in early development, there are already some great platforms if you want to take a headstart in Cardano NFTs.
I also added the marketplaces to my full NFT marketplace list, comparing over 30 marketplaces regarding commissions, payment options, wallets and much more.
CNFT
CNFT is the first marketplace on Cardano that launched in July 2021. Being only a couple of months old, the platform still lacks quite some important features however the basic functionalities needed to get started on Cardano NFTs are there.
You can buy and list assets (min. listing price: 8 ADA), however there is no minting feature yet. Nevertheless CNFT hosts a good amount of the more famous Cardano projects and collections and has the biggest trading volume of all the Cardano marketplaces right now.
On their website they also offer a decentralized exchange where you can buy their utility token $CNFT in exchange for ADA. The tokens can be used for upcoming features such as accessing projects, giveaways or promotions.
Tokhun
Tokhun is also among the first NFT platforms created specifically for Cardano. Like CNFT it is still in early development, however they are already offering a variety of features and continue to improve their site, which makes it a great pick for buying and selling Cardano NFTs.
One of my main favorite features is the minting. While most established marketplaces offer great minting features, Tokhun takes it to the next level.
Next to more typical options, like adding attributes to your NFTs Tokhun offers the possibility of serialized minting. This means you can mint up to 20 NFTs with a single click and the assets will automatically be numbered for you. This feature is great for creating any types of collections because it will save you a lot of time.
Next to their great minting Tokhun also offers an advanced search letting you search through their marketplace using:
Sale type (auction / buy now)
Project name
Tags
Category
Min. / Max. price
Finally they also include a native wallet when signing up for an account. However as I already mentioned before, I am not a big fan of marketplace native wallets for security reasons.
Let’s just say there have been cases of hackers stealing NFTs that were worth thousands of dollars.
So these kind of wallets are usually a red flag for me but if you still want to sign up I advise you to choose a strong password for your wallet and follow my article on how to keep your NFTs safe.
Final thoughts
Next to the open NFT marketplaces that I just introduced there is also a number of project native marketplaces.
The NFT collection SpaceBudz that is home to the first Cardano NFT to sell for over $1 million, hosts their assets on their own marketplace. CardanoKidz, one of the very first and most valuable Cardano projects, also has a native marketplace.
Finally there are many marketplaces who are on the verge of being launched, so stay tuned and always keep and eye on my full marketplace list or sign up for my newsletter!